Q: Can you understand the frustrations of supporters with a week to go in the window that there has not been enough business done in the market? The club are in a strong financial position so what is the message to those fans who are beginning to get tetchy about new signings?
Brendan Rodgers: “I totally understand. I totally get it. Their ideas are the same as mine. They want to improve. This is a football club with an incredible potential. For some players, we won’t be the end game and we get that. It still doesn’t mean that our benchmark is domestic football. We have got to have a high bar and our high bar that the club set is that they won the Champions League/European Cup in Europe. We are not just a team and I don’t want us to be a club and a team that just participates, takes the money and comes back out and is just happy with domestic success. The benchmark for me is much higher than that. We want to be in there competing, fighting. We don’t have the resources of a lot of them but we can certainly be in there to compete. Before that, you need to have improvement and that is what we want to do every single season. We want to improve.”
Q: What is stopping that potential? What is the hold-up? With the money and prestige that you have at this club, why haven’t there been more top-quality signings especially with time running out and a week to go?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think sometimes you may miss players in the market that have gone. There is also availability and affordability. There are still players that we can get in here that will allow us to grow and develop. I don’t want to go into it too much as we will be judged at the end of the market. Sometimes that is when things really wrap up in this final week. The players that we have brought in already I am very happy with. Kasper (Schmeichel), you can see how he has started his Celtic career. His stature, quality, everything. Adam and Paulo are players that you saw last year and that gives us the squad that we had. We want to improve and we have to improve. For a club of ambition and want to be better then that is something we need to look at.”
Q: Is there enough time left to do business? You need to strengthen in multiple areas but you only have seven days to do what you want to do.
Brendan Rodgers: “Time will tell. We have a big seven days ahead of us. I am confident we can do that. Sometimes it is waiting for the right player. The right player we might have seen and then he’s gone or he might have decided to go somewhere else. It is okay. Sometimes that does take a bit of time. We will see come the end of the window where we are at. I have always been confident that we can improve the squad by then.”
Q: Is anything imminent?
Brendan Rodgers: “Nothing at this moment, no.”
Q: What’s the transfer strategy like? Are you heavily involved now that Mark Lawwell and Joe have left?
Brendan Rodgers: “We have got a recruitment team that works tirelessly over a number of months. I have said before that by the end of this window, we will have to look at that whole structure and set-up. The guys that are currently here have worked tirelessly on identifying targets and players that can fit into the model here. It is through no want of trying. Once those guys go through that list of players who fit into the profile of how we want to work that will then come to me to ratify the player that we would want and then that will go forward to the board to look to do the deal. That’s how it works.”
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It’s just more blarney from Brendan Rodgers. He gets very well paid for his “frustration” while the fans get short changed and lead up the garden path with feigned optimism. Brendan knows full well that little to no quality will be added to the squad by window’s end, but he cautiously tells the fans what he thinks they want to hear, always with caveats such as “hopefully we can add those players”, etc. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Every day for the past 3 months fans have been scrolling through the Celtic blogs and websites looking for positive news of quality additions to the team and every day all they get is rumour and disappointment. They know the money is there in the bank and they understand that it can’t all be spent on players, but they rightfully expect a sizeable portion of it to be allocated to team improvement for Europe. They’re ambitious for the club they finance with their hard-earned cash and yet every single transfer window they’re handed the same bowl of gruel by that greedy Board while men like Brendan act as their apologists. It’s no longer acceptable for a club the size of CeltiC and Brendan Rodgers should be declaring that openly. He has to man up and tell them that unless they invest in the team to give it the tools to compete with some dignity in Europe, then there’s no point in him being there. He won’t of course because he gets paid well and the fans get zilch!
send a copy of this to the Celtic View and see if it gets published. No wonder its called Pravda and the board the Politburo,Liewell as Stalin. Excellent Martin.HH